Tier
Overview The word tier has been carried over into Landmark from the Everquest games developed when the company was owned by Sony Online Entertainment. In those games it is used to describe a range of levels for zones and items and is not always precise. For example, a character in EQ2 starts in a beginner zone and may find quests and items that are useful from the moment they start until level nine and sometimes quests take players back to zones they level beyond; for this reason, zone would be referred to as a Tier 1 zone for brevity rather than a 1-9 zone. The materials needed to craft Tier 1 armor (in EQ2) can be located by going to a zone that is appropriate for questing in the same level range (eg. a 1-9 zone to make armor for characters around the same levels), but some of the same materials might be used to craft the next tier of armor. The same holds true at this stage in the development of Landmark. You will find that you need T1 materials to make your first axe, and perhaps some T1 materials for the next upgrade, even though the primary components are T2. Launch and Tiers As of June 2016, all gathering tool progression, armor, and similar mechanics moved away from a heavy focus on this type of (tiered) progression. In other words, all axes can be used to chop all trees and all resources can be gathered to some degree while remaining on the world surface and by only entering surface caves. Gathering at the surface level-only and in surface caves will not as varied a collection of resources or as many as going into Chaos Caverns. While one will find a broader variety of resources to make into Composite Resources (certain smelted metals, gems, etc.) by traveling into Chaos Caverns (to mine and by traveling to many Biomes for wood, the tier progression is now more accurately described as "soft progression" in that it favors allowing players to make choices about how to allocate resources, rather than spend the majority of time gathering them. Gear (as of June 2016) offers more lateral progression in that one can choose gear and equipment based on personal priorities and preferences. For example, you may choose to make a fire-themed weapon, rather than a electricity-themed weapon, not because one or the other is inherently better, but because you prefer to use it for the style of attacks it offers. *Though tiers are a soft progression, you may still here reference to it; the common way to abbreviate the tiers is to use the letter T and a number as such: T1 (tier 1), T2, T3, T4, T5.' Tiers in Landmark '''Tiers in Landmark are ''not levels''' Since Landmark is not a typical level-driven MMO and your character does not have a level, there are no restrictions on when a player can use any tool from any tier. The lack of levels in Landmark is unlikely to change, as the development team working on the game has stated they are trying to avoid the "bottle necks" that are often caused by content tied to the concept of levels. Tiers are flexible and they are progressive Important changes as of launch: Rather than "hard" stats on some gear (like axes) or "item progression" that clearly make one thing "better" than another, the stats favor personal choice and flexibility; for example, one axe may have offer bonuses to discovering recipes for Props and gear and equipment, while another has a speed boost that makes logging speedy; as you can imagine a new player may want to add recipes as a fast rate or they may prioritize quickly collecting a large quantity of wood with which they can build instead, but the option to use either is ultimately in the hands of the individual. Tiers and Mining As of launch (June 2016), all islands have marble, amaranthine, copper, tin, agate, and sapphire on the surface and all other tiers of mined materials were moved to surface and Chaos Caverns (deep, vast caves). The deeper you go, the greater the variety of veins available to mine. The materials you find in surface caves or in chaos caverns can then be combined into Composite Resources, which fill out the remainder of available Resources needed to build and craft. Tiers and Trees You can locate trees on any island with the appropriate biome in which specific treses are found. For example, Burled Wood can be found in large amounts in Old Growth Forest Biomes and Volcanic Biomes, because trees there are mainly going to yield burled wood, with fewer yielding Plain Wood. Even though those are the main biomes for burled wood, you will find it in lesser quantities from trees in the Deciduous Biome, with plain wood as the main wood found in the deciduous biome. Because all landscapes have only two biomes, it is far better to travel and explore to maximize the variety of resources you gather from trees. Finding the Harvesting Tiers As soon as you create a character and log into Landmark for the first time, you are randomly placed on a Pioneer Landscape, so that you can learn the basics of building on a build site. You can keep that location as a build site but may want to leave for a time: #when you're ready to craft a set of new tools or want to build with a broader range of materials #want to go to different biomes to chop down trees for wood, tree sap, and fibers. :To learn about travel options, see the Spire page. *If at any time you are not sure which tier island you are currently on, you can find the information in the upper left hand corner of your screen above the materials tray. *If you are having difficulty finding materials, you can try visiting a different server from the one you typically stay on, since each server has the same islands (and therefore, tiers). History of Tiers Tiers underwent multiple changes from alpha to closed beta. Related Topics If you're new to the game, you may want to read up on these related topics: *Familiarize yourself with Servers and Islands, since you need to visit many islands during closed beta *Biomes are not bound to tier locations, but you need to understand them to harvest when you need. *See the Mining Guide for more info about various ore and minerals. *Read more about Gathering materials *Learn about the stats on your Gathering Tools Possible Bugs Tree troubles! *Locating the right trees in the right places is often problematic for new players. In the past, tree respawns have been an ongoing issue the programming team has been wrestling with for a very long time. Until it is fixed, we may have daily "server bounces" (very brief resets) at 5am PST to counter the problem. Check the Trees page on this wiki for updates, since it focuses on that resource specifically. Category:Gathering Category:Crafting